Turin, Italy, Feb 21, 2007 / 08:48 am
A 13-year-old girl is in the psychiatric unit of an Italian hospital after a forced abortion. The girl threatened suicide after her parents and an Italian court submitted her to an abortion, against her will.
According to "La Stampa" young Valentina suffered a mental breakdown after Judge Giuseppe Cocilovo of the Court of Minors ruled that she must undergo the procedure to kill her child.
Valentina had become pregnant by her 15-year-old boyfriend and her parents demanded she have an abortion on the grounds that she was “ruining her life” by becoming a mother. Valentina's mother said she did not have the money to support the child.
Under Italian law, the parents or guardians of a minor may force a child to undergo an abortion.
Since the abortion, Valentina has been confined to the psychiatric unit of Regina Margherita children's hospital in Turin for wanting to commit suicide.
“You have made me kill, and now I kill myself,” Valentina reportedly cried. "I am not crazy; I am only evil like a dog” for what her parents and the court have obliged her to do, she said.